Review Post-game discussion/positives & negatives vs Geelong

[gillo94]

Ummm... today's result/performance has nothing to do with us getting a Good Friday game.

But think today's performance was really good, and much needed win by both sides considering the run both teams have

 

[Yianni]

We still also need to capitalise on Goldy in the middle. One thing I've observed is that quite often Goldy will put it down Zeibell's throat, but JZ starts to close to the contest and he can't control it. When he gives himself an extra half a metre (and that's all it takes) he's able to control the ball and win the clearance.

This is true. Selwood did this better. He was further from the ruck contest so he didn't always get tackled, and if he did, sometimes he could dish the ball to an outside runner.

 

[My Third Nipple]

Nah, I'm just a realist mate. I can accept a loss but its time for a few hard truths to a few of our players. We've had a really good run for a fair while and we cant stay up in the top 8 forever. I'm happy for clubs like kangas and the dogs an look forward to them challenging top 4 clubs. Its just our time for a considered and measured approach to retiring some club legends with some dignity and respect and blooding some youth. We could also use a bloody ruckman like yours and a couple of hard nose, in and under mids. What say a swap for Goldstein and Ziebell for Smedts and you can have Macintosh back. lol.

 

[Yianni]

-
Geelong crowd.....they are kidn.

Give them a break. They're readjusting.

 

[TooUglyForFugly]

Give them a break. They're readjusting.

Readjusting? Trying to turn back time more like.

 

[blackshadow]

Positives
We turned up to play the last three quarters and won well after giving up a four goal start.
Goldstein was immense.
Found a player in Dumont.
Robbie Tarrant is looking great in the back line.
Thommo is back.

Negatives
We didn't show up in the first quarter.
Shithouse disposal in the first quarter - we couldn't hit the side of a barn in the first.
Drew is badly out of form (did a couple of things once the game was won)

 

[Yianni]

Readjusting? Trying to turn back time more like.

 

[Grogg]

Readjusting? Trying to turn back time more like.

If they could find a way.....

Edit: Damn you Yianni

 

[r_boy]

Negatives:

Getting owned in first quarters.

Losing the numbers game all the time. We always seem to be outnumbered in every contest.


Positives:

Goldstein always knew he had it in him to be one of the best players in the comp. Needs to go on with it.

Tarrant. If he can stay injury free will be an awesome player.

 

[Lums23]

The biggest positive for me was that we weren't relying on the old heads to step up and win the game for us.

Petrie was quiet, Boomer was quiet. Even Swallow was fairly quiet

The lift mainly came from the younger more fringe players. Guys like Jacobs, Tarrant, Wright and Nahas. Not only does it show the strength of having depth and competition for spots, but it really looks good for Scott and the coaches to see the development of these younger fringe players

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Yeah Petrie was a negative. He can usually bring the ball to ground at worst, but was getting outmarked today.

And Atley. Just refuses to take the next step.

 

[JD-Roo]

Cheers GR. I think I'll wait for JD-Roo's official stats though.

Spewing that I couldn't make it today. Youngest had an MRI at the RCH today for her bendy spine. Been waiting three months for this one. Essendon supporter (with SOME North leanings). I accused her of doing it on purpose

 

[marklovesbeer]

Amongst the hand wringing of the 1st Q there was one shining light of a post-

GDT vs Geelong @ Simonds Stadium

I was pretty confident too. My brother & I were discussing the game via text.

 

[Egga]

Positives:
Goldmember deserves all the dicks he has been awarded in this thread, plus a bagful more which he can give to Basil Zempilas to eat
Dumont - Who would have known a Frenchman could do so much more than eat cheese and surrender?
Revenge of the whipping boys - Jacob, Tarrant, Spud, Wright, Nahas, Waite and Bastinac. If you have written any of these boys off, go to the naughty corner and give yourself a rogering!
Tarrant - fantastic to see him paying brilliantly. Well deserved given the torture he has endured

Negatives:
Team has turned up unprepared to play far too many times in the last year or two. That needs to stop NOW or we can give up any hope of a top 4 finish
What is the point of having a multdicked ruckman if you let the opposition win the clearances? Message to Goldy+Swallow+Cunners+JZ: Work out your sh!t guys!
Drew is a dirty dish
Boomer is a non-entity in defence and Turner is not in our best 22 right now. Move Boomer forward when we get more warm bodies on the park

 

[Flawed Genius]

Positives:

Goldy - f***! Honestly. Best ruckman in the competition and probably second only to Fyfe as the player in the best form comp-wide. Would be on 6 votes, and it's not like he's getting those votes against shitmen ruckmen. Rucking all day against two or three other guys and beating them hands down. Has truly developed into an elite ruckman. I expect if he continues the way he has been, records will tumble and he will become a legitimate shot at a Brownlow medal

Wright - 32 touches @ 81%, 9 marks and 7 R50s. Would've sworn when he was drafted that his best position was a forward, and although it's taken a long while and he's had many bumps along the way, I believe that he believes he's got a position of his very own to solidify. He's calm and collected more often than not and he always makes smart decisions. Has maintained the "great-below-his-knees" ability of his junior football but developed a very canny defensive side. Excellent start to the year from Sammy

Swallow - leading from the front now. Bottom of every pack - 4 clearances, 5 tackles. Just keeps working. So vital, and as much as we speak about Cunnington and Ziebell and now, inevitably, Dumont, this bloke wrote the book on what those guys are trying to do. We underrate him at our peril. Won't get the accolades and won't poll votes, but we must respect how important he is to this side

Ziebell - 35% DE is aaaabsolutely shocking, but to come back from a bruised lung 8 days prior and play at a hostile ground against a side that came after him early and take every hit? He's a tough prick. 20 disposals 8 tackles

Tarrant - I get the feeling at the end of the year people will be devoting a lot of column inches to the resurgence of this man. The main thing I notice about his play in the backline is how assured he looks. His confidence sticks out like a sore thumb. Someone commented that his concrete hands phase might be over and I agree. It took me about a quarter to lose all the trepidation about a ball coming in long to the top of the defensive square. Taz just looks so natural back there. I would be amazed if he doesn't play every game for the rest of the season. We might have finally found the guy to play on the gorillas, and he was in the backyard the whole time

Thompson - a touch of mojo back today. How much of it is just him having to adjust to having a newer, bigger body (Tarrant) down there, who knows? But the Thompson that went around today was closer to the AA Thompson than we've seen this year. Doing his duck and weave s**t, freewheeling around the backline and drifting up. Impressive performance but again I feel as though Tarrant's resurgence is a massive part of what let SDT do his thing today

Wood - 22 touches is pretty grouse for a 3rd gamer. His tank is nice. Thewlis mentioned he seems like he's everywhere. He had a few touches deep in the back pocket and the next thing you know you're seeing him on the wing or in the midfield. Pretty excited by what we seem to have on our hands, which is a midfielder in the Fyfe/Bonti/Mundy mold. NDS mentioned on CH7 pre-game that the prototypical midfielder seems to be getting up around 193/93 and that appears to be where Wood is heading, which should be plenty exciting for everyone

Waite - that should be his standard from now on. It won't be and we'll get boiled lollies again this season, but 3 goals straight, some bruising work both high and low, and bringing his teammates into the play, is exactly what he was recruited to offer. He must find a way to be consistent

Jacobs - so happy that Ben is finding form. I am an unabashed fan and think he has a role to play in our side. He smashed it in the VFL as a midfielder, but he's not good enough to play that role in the AFL, so it's where he is now that he has to get better at. I think without McDonald & MacMillan today, along with Atley playing a little further up the ground, he relished the increased responsibility. Started a few scoring chains with brilliant disposal through the middle, making smart choices. Building nicely (and congrats on 50 games)

Nahas - when he's good, he's very very good. Has gone past Turner, which is probably to be expected. Didn't know he had the wheels on him to go the distance from 50. For what we got him for (nothing) and what we're probably paying him (next to nothing), he's repaying the faith tenfold. Must stay

Brown - had an uncharacteristically off day set-shot wise, but that one from 55-odd was a beauty. Such a surprise and such a weapon. Very hard to match up on. Must persist with

Bastinac - the most pleasing thing for mine regarding Basti's game was his physicality. Seemed to want to tackle, want to put blokes down. Gave Motlop a love tap, which is about the last thing I'd ever expect Basti to do. Didn't put up huge numbers, but did his part, kicked a goal and made his presence felt

Cunnington - much better than last week (anything would've been). Suffers from the same ailment as Jack and Swallow in that he often rushes a clearance when he doesn't need to. It's weird and annoying for a player who seemingly makes time stand still a lot of ....the time. Maybe the only thing that pisses me off about him and the rest of our clearance crew

Thomas - yeah. Gun. So deft. I'd love to see more of him in the midfield. His skills are so damn clean when he's field kicking. Missed a couple today he'd normally kick. Still a champion footballer

Dumont - perfect sub performance. Came on and changed the game. Beat three Cats stone dead to rights in the middle then still had the composure to find a leading target AND keep running AND draw Brown's man AND handball to Brown for a goal. Then just finds good position in the 50, perfect front and centre, lost his man (Murdoch?) in the pack and the checkside couldn't've been better. Must play next week

Other: breaking the Kardinia Kurse is nice. I ******* hate losing there.

Negatives:

Higgins - had a weird game in that he got a stack of it but did weird s**t with it. His kicks at goals weren't quite passes and his passes weren't quite kicks at goals. Laid a few nice tackles and had the most I50s in the team, but I feel like this is one he'd rather forget personally

Harvey - hasn't clicked into gear yet. Maybe with Tarrant and Thompson finding form back there together we can get Boomer out of CHB and back where he plays best. Still the best user of the footy going inside 50 in our team. Made some strange decisions today, but hopefully he's just having a late start to the year, given he's not usually playing around this time yet

Turner - has to do more. Maybe he's knackered, but he's not getting enough of the pill in dangerous enough spots. Concerned about his ability to play in the same team as Nahas and Thomas. Right now Nahas is offering more and we have players that need to come back in. Can't drop Jacobs, can't drop Wright. Can't drop Firrito. Kayne needs to go back to the VFL

Gibson - another who had a weird game. We know what we're going to get from Sam and we got it. Running in spades and questionable disposal. You take the good with the bad as we have to, but 14 disposals is well below his usual effort and when he dips to 57% efficiency, he would want to bounce back next week. Only problem is it doesn't get any easier against the Hawks who probably have some of the best pure wingers in the game

Firrito - Feel strange putting him in the negatives pile but nothing he did thrilled me too greatly. Didn't notice him do too much wrong but I just felt underawed about his game. 11 1%ers, so maybe there's someone out there who can convince he was good today. Sort of a nothing game

Petrie - has gotten better at kicking clutch goals. Unfortunately not much else went right for him. Taylor is an exceptional defender

Atley - I'm not worried. Yet

 

[Marstermind]

My #1 positive tonight.
Our defence - OK, the Cats fell into kicking it in long hoping for Hawkins & Clark to monster our guys. But as a group they were awesome. Aside from blanketing their guys, the movement out of defensive 50 was great. Special mention to Spud Firrito - won't show on any stats sheet and won't get any votes from anyone. But he was fantastic.

My #1 negative.
The first quarter - Awful. Terrible disposal, decision making and intensity. Haven't hit the ground running in any game this year.

 

[hilly]

Lots to work on but got the four points and some lesser lights continue to develop.

Looking at the footy across the weekend, definitely need a little more run (Wells will help) and the torch (Gibson) may have to be the topic of selection this week as even last week's 30 possession game was being considered poor.

Can you stop calling for more run with every single post?

 

[hilly]

Yet ABC radio of the Dogs and Crows game was saying Cordy was having to go it alone against Jacobs who along with Mumford were by a distance the best ruckmen in the game. Gets no credit.

ABC radio at 4.40pm on a Sunday probably isn't the A-team.

 

[hilly]

The biggest positive for me was our lesser lights standing up. Wright, Tarrant, Jacobs, Nahas, Bastinac and Dumont all gave the team plenty.

 

[Tas]

Just saw Brad's post game. Is the press room in a sauna? Brad was sweating like he was having a heart attack, I was about to call 000. :stern look

 

[Zondor]

Great Day at Sleepy Hollow my friends. Started off with a delicious Baked Potatoe. Sat near the players race and Nicky Dal waltzing around in his Armani Jacket sipping on a skinny late brought a bit of class to the Catery. For those interested Dal is walking around quite nicely.

Anyways we started off slowly and that was a negative but in that time I was very impressed by Slamming Sammy Wright and the Greek God himself Robbie Tarrant. They held up many attacking forays by the Cats.

A positive was us working our way back into the game. Good stuff. Good Fight.

The game was tight in the third and early in the last but when it counted we blew the game apart. Led by Goldy who was awesome, Nahas and Dumont were valuable contributors. Pleasing to see.

Highlights during the match for me were Waite's Speccy, Thomas' bump on Caddy and Goldy's last quarter in particular.

It's been a long time since we beat the Cats in Geelong. 2007 in fact. We started their dynasty and now we have ended it. :stern look

 

[Shermanator]

1st quarter..



Last quarter..

 

[nelroo]

Just saw Brad's post game. Is the press room in a sauna? Brad was sweating like he was having a heart attack, I was about to call 000. :stern look

I wondered too..intense game

 

[NorthernLights]

The only disappointment was that you've probably fired them up for next week.

I wouldn't worry about that mate, they are pretty cooked.

But cheers.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

I'm going to throw up a positive many would overlook.

Michael Firrito. Unsung hero.

Was absolutely immense today, essentially played the Hansen role at times which is impressive as thats not the type of defender spud is.

Huge influence on our win today IMO.